


look into the sun as the new days rise

by MashpotatoeQueen5



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 100 Year War (Avatar TV), Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Child Azula (Avatar), Child Soldiers, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Cuddling & Snuggling, Enemies to Friends, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Forgiveness, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hiking, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, Katara & Zuko (Avatar) Friendship, Katara (Avatar)-centric, Male-Female Friendship, Matter of Life and Death, Napping, POV Katara (Avatar), Pai Sho, Platonic Relationships, Saving the World, Sleep Deprivation, Sozin's Comet, Sparring, Stubborn Katara (Avatar), Team as Family, Teenage Dorks, Teenagers Dealing With Shit, Trauma, Worry, Zuko and Katara really went from clashing against each other at every turn, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, because on one hand Katara is so mature, in about a month, my brain is constantly at war, of course i had to explore how this happens, on the other hand she is straight up a fourteen year old child, to ride or die friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28057446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MashpotatoeQueen5/pseuds/MashpotatoeQueen5
Summary: It's one thing to say you're ready to forgive someone, and quite another to actually do it.Katara and Zuko become friends while dealing with the potential end of world. It involves a lot of hiking, shared trauma, and trying to reclaim their childhoods from the grasps of war.Oh, and the rest of the gaang is there too.
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Katara & The Gaang (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 110
Collections: ATLA Winter Solstice 2020





	look into the sun as the new days rise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustAnotherGhostwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/gifts).



> Title is from the song Stay Alive, by José González.
> 
> Massive thank you to Synapse, my most lovely beta <3
> 
> To JustAnotherGhostwriter, this work was created just for you! I hope this fic gives off all the comforting platonic love and found family relationships your heart desires. I know you said to feel free to romance it up, but that isn't really my forte, and I figured this fandom could use some Katara and Zuko friendship. Anyways, it was an absolute delight to fill out your request, and I wish you the most happiest of holidays! *hugs*

Katara stands outside Zuko’s door and fidgets.

It’s stupid.

Or, well, not _stupid,_ but frustrating. Aggravating. Sokka could come up with better words, but this is something she has to do on her own.

She’s the one who’s been such a jerk. She’s the one who has to make things right. 

Except—-

Except she doesn’t want to apologize for being angry. She _won’t_ apologize for being angry, angry and upset and volatile. There is a sense of vindication there, woven into those bitter emotions, a steady undercurrent to an unsteady breach of surf. Katara doesn't trust easily once she's been burned. Once the people she loves have been burned.

Zuko burned her and her family. A lot. For so long he had been the face of the fire nation, in her mind, someone to blame the grief and rage in her chest on. The loss from her shrinking, straggling village settled as weight on her shoulders. She remembers the fear in her Grangran’s eyes, the way the flames flared too bright and too close, and seethes. 

She clenches her fists and unclenches them, releasing every finger one by one by one. The paneling of the door is cracked, old wood bleached from the sun.

Katara breathes.

Fire has been a source of far too many wounds: late nights and healing water, hidden grimaces in the dark. To be angry at that betrayal, to be afraid of the potential damage hanging over the heads of those she cares about, she can't take it back. Won't. 

But she's supposed to be forgiving Zuko now. Letting that anger go, or something like it. It was justified and now it is no longer useful, an old tunic that no longer fits. She is a hermit crab, growing out of her shell. 

Or, she wants to be. She wants to be mature enough that the emotions welling up inside of her release as naturally as a waning tide. She wants to be that kind of person so bad. But she's _not:_ anger is easy and that bitter sense of betrayal runs deep. Her emotions are such volatile, wild things.

Katara sits around campfires and works on it, holding back cruel comments and trying for smiles, for kindness, even when it comes out too sharp at its edges.

But she's trying, and that has to count for something. 

After all, Katara made a promise of forgiveness in the face of such kindness. She's been chasing this sense of closure since she was dragged from her home, stained mittens tracking white ice red, an age old grief in the body of a young girl.

Logically, Zuko is on their side. He's proven himself, risked his life to prove himself, with the kind of definitive action that Katara has always, always believed in. 

He's proven himself with his actions, that he's on their side, that they can trust him. Now it's her turn to follow through on _her_ word. To show him that they can be friends, that she trusts him as a part of this movement, as a part of her team.

Nodding to herself, she raises her first to knock on the door.

Hesitates.

(Old wounds ache. They ache so heavily.)

_Stop being stupid,_ she thinks, and raps her knuckles across aged wood.

She doesn’t expect Zuko to open the door right away. He's got a dagger held loosely in his hand, probably not even realizing he'd grabbed it before answering. It’s not surprising, because Sokka is the same way. For some reason, though, with Zuko it registers far more prominently in her mind's eye.

"Hi," she says, putting on her best smile. Zuko blinks at her and his hand tightens on the blade. Not to attack— Katara knows what it looks like when someone is about to take a swing— but as an unconscious precaution. In wariness. 

Not the best start to her plan.

_Monkeyfeathers,_ she thinks.

And then, _just get on with it._

"Zuko, hey… uh, I was just wondering if you'd like to go on a hike. With me."

He stares. It's hard to read his expression with the burn. Katara keeps smiling, even as he realizes he’s carrying a weapon and awkwardly tries to hide it behind his back in a subtle manner.

It’s not subtle in the slightest.

She wonders if he just woke up. Maybe he's hungry?

"I have snacks."

This is true. Sokka will be pissed at her later for raiding his secret stash, but it's for a good cause, so she figures she'll _probably_ get away with it.

Probably.

If Zuko ever responds.

She's about to prompt him again when the teen gives a jerky nod. 

"Okay. Give me three minutes."

The door slips shut as quietly as it had opened.

Katara steps back and leans her head back against the wall. Something tells her this is going to be a _long_ trip.

* * *

* * *

She’s pleasantly surprised.

It's not that it _isn't_ awkward, just that, at some point, the weird tension settles somewhat. It's hard to focus on the shifting emotions when she's too busy putting one foot in front of the other, attempting to keep track of where she's going. The packed earth crawling up the hillside is slowly being reclaimed by the flora, and easily lost amongst the creeping vegetation.

She wonders who made these trails. When they made them. If it was some sort of herd of animals or a family who lived here, long ago.

(There's a metaphor, here, maybe. About the things people make. About the things people leave behind.)

The sun is climbing higher into the sky. They've been out for an hour now, steady progress and steady breathing. Occasionally, soft earth crumbles under their feet, and Katara watches the ground and wonders how you can heal from a year of such burning anger, how you continue your journey after taking that first step. 

The sun blazes. It must be almost noon. 

"Are you ready to eat?" Katara shifts the pack on her shoulders so that it stops digging into her skin. She tilts her head to look at him, and Zuko offers something that could pass for a smile.

"Uh," he says, clearing his throat, "sure. I could eat."

Katara nods. Ahead, there's a flat patch of ground, high enough up that they should be able to see if anyone tries to sneak up on them. A couple of larger stones to sit on. 

Awkward. Awkward, awkward, awkward. 

The emotions twisting in her stomach belong to a child, and she's supposed to be more than that, better than that. 

And she is, she _is,_ but she's also, apparently, not. 

A lifetime ago, Aang had laughed with her, wind and snow whipping past their faces, an arctic sun stretching long across the horizon. 

_"You still are a kid!"_

Katara thinks about that, sometimes. About how young these tired bones are, residing under her skin. About the war and growing up in it.

"Hey, this looks like a good spot."

She blinks, refocusing on the world around her. Zuko has pulled to a stop in front of the very place she had been eyeing before, flat high ground with a clear view of all their surroundings. Smiling a little crooked smile at the unexpected shared tastes, Katara nods and swings off her pack, resting it on the ground and plopping down besides it. 

Unpacking takes but a moment, an assortment of little treats and a collection of dried jerkies. There’s a baggie of fireflakes that Zuko eyes hungrily, and she hands it over without a second thought.

His smile is small and bright in response. It's not something she's expecting either.

_Little kindnesses_ _,_ she thinks, _little kindnesses._

They eat. If they go a little too fast, a little too hungrily, they don’t notice. The task itself is mindless, feed and refuel, and it doesn't detract from the stilted atmosphere. So Katara clears her throat and she _tries_.

"So, um, how have you been?"

The question is ridiculous and boring, considering she lives with the guy, but it's also safer than anything else she can come up with. 

Why does making friends with prior enemies have to be so _hard_?

"Good. Okay." Zuko seems to grasp for words. "Aang is learning fast."

Katara nods. It's true, Aang seems to progress in his firebending every day. 

“Yeah. He picks things up quickly.”

“Yeah.”

There is a bitterness in his tone of voice. She thinks back to her own early days of training Aang, the frustration at his sense of ease when she had to try so, so hard. She wonders if Zuko can relate.

But she fumbles, trying to bring up her own weaknesses, and just like that, they fall back into silence. Katara thought she was _good_ with people.

Zuko finishes off the fireflakes and swallows. Awkwardly.

“Wanna spar?”

The relief is immediate.

_“Yes.”_

As spaces go, it’s not the most secluded, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone on this corner of the island, and it will be good, she thinks, to use up this energy, to practice, to force herself to trust Zuko as they pose mock battles.

Water rolls up her arms. Zuko settles himself into a starting position. In some synchronous wave of understanding, they begin.

Smirking, she sloshes water into his face, laughing when he splutters.

It feels like the start of something new. 

* * *

* * *

“My bet’s on Zuko.”

Everyone turns to stare at her, just for a second, eyebrows raised. No one looks more shocked than Zuko himself, and Katra shrugs, trying not to feel self conscious as she plops herself down in front of the makeshift Pai Sho board drawn into the dirt.

“What? The other option is _Sokka._ Easy choice.”

Her brother's curious gaze settles into an over exaggerated frown, and he tilts his head back to look at Suki, who is braiding his hair with an expression of intense concentration on her face.

“Do you see how I’m treated, Suki? _Betrayed,_ by my own blood?”

Suki smiles, not incredibly sympathetic, but nonetheless pauses in her braiding to kiss Sokka on the head.

“I’ll root for you.”

“Well, at least _somebody_ appreciates me.”

Sokka gives her _A Look,_ and Katara sticks out her tongue, sitting down on a rock and peering down at the game at hand. In the distance, there is the deep pounding of massive hunks of earth being tossed around from where Toph and Aang are training.

She doesn’t know all the rules and, judging by Sokka’s hesitancy and Zuko’s occasional faltering, neither do they. Still, it’s fun to watch the boys put tile after tile onto their makeshift board, faces of intense concentration that occasionally dissipates in favour of a brief debate over what’s allowed or not.

At the very least, it’s something to do.

Sadly, Katara’s bet is off, and Sokka wins the round. He stands up and cheers, dozens of Suki’s tiny braids swinging with the motion, and Zuko sighs, putting his chin in his hands.

She awkwardly pats his back. It’s a bit weird, but she’s trying.

She’s trying.

He shrugs her hand off, offering her a half-smile.

“My uncle plays- played- all the time. I thought I could…. imitate him. Or something.”

“You win some, you lose some,” she says, and Zuko nods, furrowing his brow.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Before the conversation—- as choppy as it was—- could get any farther, Suki sits herself down in Sokka’s place, smiles up at Zuko with a handful of tiles in her hand.

“You wanna go again? We could make a tournament out of it.”

Zuko shrugs, and Katara nods. They have time.

By the time Aang and Toph come back from training, both of them sweating and covered in mud and dust, the competition is at its peak, Suki and Sokka facing off in the final round. Katara is cheering for Suki with every move and Zuko has set up shop by her side, eyeing the board with a keen gaze. Sokka had complained about not having anyone to cheer for him, but Katara had vetoed him citing the importance of supporting her fellow woman and Zuko had denied him by outright declaring Suki the better player.

Sokka waves their two youngest members over the moment he sees them.

“Guys! I need you to cheer for me! Katara and Zuko are being jerks.”

It dissolves into a mess of yelling and shenanigans, Toph jeering a series of insults and Aang practically falling onto the floor with how far he leans over Sokka’s shoulder. Katara meets Toph with a flailing series of comebacks and Zuko watches silently, face mostly blank but something like a smile at the corner of his lips.

When Suki wins, Katara cheers and gives her a hug. The other team groans, splayed at their feet.

She offers Zuko a victory high five, and bemusedly, hesitantly, he takes it.

* * *

* * *

“Tell me a story.”

“A story?”

“Yeah, Zuko. Tell me a story.”

“About what?”

“Anything you want.”

They are standing at the top of a cliff, the wind billowing, getting their hair in their faces. Zuko’s good eye is squinting against that stinging breeze. Katara’s hands smart after that last bout of climbing, her callouses digging into jagged rock and stone.

It’s beautiful up here. They can see a wide berth of the island, all the way down to the beach. 

“Once,” he starts, fumbling, “when the world was younger, there were two dragons—-”

“Is this going to be a bad retelling of _Love Amongst the Dragons?”_

He looks at her in barely concealed panic. Katara wonders how on earth she ever looked at this awkward theatre nerd and saw a legitimate threat.

“Err, yes?”

She groans.

“Zuko, I meant a story about _you.”_

He throws his hands into the air.

“Well, how was I supposed to know!?”

“I’m telling you _now,_ aren’t I?”

He huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. She snorts in response and turns back to watching the waves crash against the distant shore. This is the fifth time they’ve escaped up into the mountains since their little hiking trips began. The little jousts usually only last an hour, sometimes two. Their trips almost always dissolve into sparring, and when the others ask that’s their usual answer. Training. Preparing. Getting ready.

And it’s true. It’s _true._ There’s sixteen days before Sozin’s Comet arrives and they all need to be ready for it. For the aftermath.

But it’s also just… a way out. Out of the house crammed to the brim with young, temperamental, _exhausted_ teenagers. Out of that looming, worried atmosphere, that recognition that they’re all gathered together for a reason, for a purpose so much bigger than their small skin and bones.

Katara loves the ocean, will always have a special place in her heart carved out for the sea, but there is something about mountains that she is learning to love, too. Something about the rising up, climbing upwards and outwards and out, calls to her.

She is learning to enjoy the company, the way their careful conversations are giving way to something a little more comfortable. 

“When I was younger,” Zuko starts, and his words clip out of his teeth like ice, jagged and too sharp, “We would have to do a family portrait, every year.”

She realizes, oddly touched, that he’s bearing the cold for her. These words do not come easily, and he is sharing them anyway. This is a kindness made of hard edges.

“And it was this whole _thing._ You had to wear these fancy official robes, and go to this fancy official room, and then you would have to sit and pose for _hours.”_

He laughs, like it should be funny. Instead, it just sounds bitter.

“My mom- she used to bribe us. Sit still, keep quiet, and afterwards we would go on a picnic, outside the palace grounds.”

“Us?”

Zuko’s face twists through a half-dozen complicated emotions, before settling on something like resignation. 

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s almost too quiet to hear. “Us. Azula—- my sister, but, uh, you know that—- well, she used to _hate_ portrait days. When she was young. Younger. When she was really, _really_ small.”

Katara thinks back to the girl with blue fire on her fingertips and cold calculation in her eyes, the lightning streaking through the air and that smug little smirk. She tries to imagine her tiny and toddling, whining like Sokka used to when he had to wake up early and do chores. 

It doesn’t quite compute. Zuko, besides her, huddles into himself.

“When she was five, Dad took her aside the day before we did portraits. I don’t think I ever saw her complain about it again. Mom stopped doing picnics pretty soon after that.”

Somewhere, a firehawk screeches loudly to the wind. Katara hugs her knees and breathes, breathes.

“How did you lose her, your mom? I mean, you mentioned, in the caves…?”

Zuko’s silence carries louder than any sound. It swallows up all the air and she huddles into herself, bites the inside of her cheek and curses her curiosity.

Not everyone processes grief like she does. Loudly and present and forthwith. She should know that. She _does_ know that.

“I’m sorry, never mind. You don’t have to…”

Zuko just sighs, scrubs a hand over his face.

“No, no, it’s fine. I mean, you shared with me, so—-”

“But that doesn’t mean _you_ have to—-”

“Katara.”

Her mouth shuts with a snap, and she nods mutely, watches out of the corner of her eye as he mimics her position and curls his knees up to his chest. A rock, displaced by the sudden movement, clatters over the edge and she trails its path as it falls down, down, down—-

His voice, when it finally seeps into the quiet, sounds tired but determined. He tells her, in an even tone, about his cousin, about his grandfather, about his father and the deal _he_ made, learned retroactively through the lips of a girl who only spoke truth when it was painful. 

About the deal his mother made, maybe, to save him.

Katara listens.

There was a time, when she was young—- younger—- when her father hadn’t left yet and her brother was still relearning how to be loud in the wake of grief, when Sokka had sat beside her and whispered, “The silences have shapes.”

She hadn’t understood. But she thinks she does, now. The weight of this moment is almost physical.

A year ago, if you had told her she would be sitting on a mountain top with a firebender by her side and so much shared grief pooling into the palms of their hands, she wouldn’t have believed it. 

Now, though, she is angry. She is _furious_ for this boy, and she is so, so sad. Her emotions are loud and crowding inside her chest as she tries to breathe around them.

Katara reaches out and takes his wrist, squeezes it tight. “Shit, Zuko. What they did—- I mean, I can’t even _imagine._ How _dare_ they—-”

The words come out in a hiss, and Zuko stares at her, bewildered.

She breathes, breathes.

“I guess. I guess that’s not helpful—-”

But Zuko is shaking his head, shaking his head, rocking closer to her before rocking back, hands jittering upwards before being contained back around his knees. He scowls at the little scars crisscrossing up his forearms, the tiny burns lining his knuckles.

“No. It’s fine, you’re fine. I just—- I don’t think anyone’s ever reacted, like that. So angry. I mean, my uncle, maybe, but he’s family. He was, you know, and, _gah_ —-”

He looks at her, expression helpless and maybe a little shocked, at her righteous rage on his behalf, the emotions tucked away behind his own self-frustration.

Katara is about ready to kill a man.

“Well,” she says, and she’s still glaring but she keeps it directed at a rock, patting him on the back, “you are more than worthy of it. I promise.”

It is quiet, for a moment. Two.

“Okay.” 

The shape of silence in her lungs sits so heavy. Katara takes in air and lets it go, feeling the press of its weight.

“Okay. And for what it’s worth, Zuko? I’m sorry that you had to go through that. You didn’t deserve it.”

He looks at her, his gaze holding too steady, a frown at his lips. Then he sighs and stiltedly mimics her, patting her back in turn. “I’m sorry, too. About your mom. And your village. You didn’t deserve it, either.”

She breathes, looks at him. _Really_ looks at him.

Zuko—

Zuko's blundering and stiff and angry, angry, angry, flying off the rail and snapping at little things. He sleeps in corners and zones out for hours and dances around certain topics like they're poison.

But he also tells jokes, even if he can't remember the whole thing. He offers advice if you are looking for it, though almost always in weird anecdotes that make no sense. He gets frustrated and lashes out and disappears for an hour and always comes back, a strained but honest apology on his lips.

There's a war on their shoulders, a deadline pressing heavy on their backs. Katara feels the weight of it, sometimes, in random little moments. She is feeling it right now, on this mountain top, kept company by a boy with a scar and a shape made of silence. 

But Zuko’s gaze holds steady. She realizes, abruptly, that he’s her friend. Zuko, _somehow,_ has become her friend. 

Katara grew up lonely. The company she kept was a sense of responsibility in her chest and an ever present weight of grief in her throat. Having friends in and of itself is strange, much less one whom she used to hate.

She flounders, swallowing hard. 

“Let’s head back down,” is what eventually escapes from her mouth, and she scrambles to her feet. He nods, rising to join her, and hesitates. 

“Would you tell me about your family? Growing up?”

It’s an honest question. An offering. She wonders, suddenly, if he is just as new to friendship as she is. If he grew up lonely, with that sinking realization that your home is breaking down to pieces and there is nothing you can do to hold it together.

Katara wonders about a lot of things. 

In the end, all she says is “Sure,” and jumps right into the _two-fishhooks-in-one-thumb_ story.

It is a kindness. It is a start.

* * *

* * *

“Is this going to be a thing?”

Zuko sounds so, so done.

Katara hides her smile under the guise of stirring the stew. Aang, oblivious, continues sleeping splayed across Zuko’s chest.

It was the older boy's mistake for laying down out in the open. Aang has a second sense for potential cuddle partners, and he has never been above taking advantage of something as trivial as a lack of consciousness of the waking world. 

Now, unless Zuko wants to wake the airbender up, he's stuck. Katara purposely set up shop right next to him to see his blatant panic upon realising his situation.

It's _hilarious_.

"I'm going to wake him up," he hisses, not shifting a muscle and whispering instead of talking loudly. "I am going to wake him up, and then I am going to make him do fifty hot squats, and then I'm going to make him do katas until he can't _move."_

Katara can't help it. She snorts.

Zuko glares at her. She takes unending amusement from his suffering.

Gesturing at Aang, still snoring away against the firebender's chest, she smirks. "Well, go on then, Mr. High and Mighty. Wake up the avatar."

Watching his open mouth snap shut and his teeth grind together as he tries to make up an excuse as to why he is most definitely _not_ doing the things he just proclaimed is funny. Watching Zuko positively _freeze_ when Aang shifts and mumbles in his sleep, only breathing again once the younger boy settles, makes Katara let out a bark of laughter.

Which is when, of course, Toph enters the picture.

The younger girl steps up to Katara and her smile gives away the fact that she knows _exactly_ what position their newest member has found himself in. There is absolutely no pity on her young face. She is the very truest image of a tiny little asshole.

Katara loves her.

She loves her even more when Toph marches right over to tower above Zuko's head with a shit eating grin.

"I see you've been caught by Twinkle Toes' pentapus arms. Wouldn't have taken you as a cuddler, Sparky."

He looks a little flabbergasted. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

"I'm _not,"_ he hisses. Katara snorts again, feels his glare fall back on her, and looks up to offer a sunny smile.

Zuko thumps his head back across the ground. Toph cackles, plops herself down in front of him, and starts trickling grass on his face.

"I hate you all," he says, sounding rather put out, and the earthbender leans closer in response.

"You know I can tell you're lying, right?"

He groans. Katara coos. 

A lifetime ago, if she were to see Aang vulnerable like this, conked out on Zuko’s chest, she thinks she would have been furious, would have taken it as yet another example of misplaced trust.

That was then. This is now. 

_"Aww,_ we love you too, Zuko!"

Zuko groans louder, and both she and Toph laugh while Aang snores blissfully on.

It is simply a moment, but it is a good one. She holds it in the palms of her hands and let's it fill her up, a warmth in her chest that makes it just that much easier to breathe.

* * *

* * *

The hills are different here, outside of Ember Island. More brambles and less grass, more soil and less stone. Katara hasn’t slept well in three days. She is bursting with energy, with adrenaline, her hands thrumming against her thighs.

They hike. They are supposed to be resting, but Aang is missing and the fate of the world is in the balance, and come morning Zuko is seeking the forgiveness of a man he feels he’s betrayed.

Neither one of them can sleep. The moon is bright enough to see the trails. Climbing seems a better use of their time, at least for now.

It is quiet, but comfortable. The rustling of their clothing passing through briers, their steady breathing filtering into the night air, all of it collaborates into a gentle backdrop of noise. They don’t dare go too high, in fear that their silhouettes might be spotted on the ridge by enemy soldiers holed up in Ba Sing Se, but they walk.

“What do you think?”

“About what, Zuko?”

The quiet feels like drowning, sinking deeper and deeper into unexpected depths.

“My uncle, I mean-” he swallows, hard— “Katara, I messed up. I messed up so bad. How could he ever take me back?”

She swallows, hard, huddling into herself and breathing with uncooperative lungs. Shaking and shaking and shaking until she falls apart is not an option. A loved one _needs_ her, and even as quiet and scared as she is, she steps up to the challenge.

“Well,” she says, and tries for a smile that only just manages to reach her eyes. “I did.” 

It is a hollow comfort. It is all she has to give.

Zuko is looking at her, in her peripheral, his scar red and gaunt in the pale moonlight. A week ago, he laid down beside her in pale grass after another round of sparring and talked about playing with his sister, his cousin, his family. They would run for hours, he had said, getting lost in the chase, getting lost in the joy. The words had come out as if they were secret, as if they were sacred, a snapshot of simpler times.

He had sounded fond, had looked content. Now, his face is a pale waxed sheen and his voice trembles ever so faintly.

Sozin’s Comet comes in two days. If they fail, so many people will be lost.

She breathes, and it comes out choked, and she pauses, swiping furiously at her eyes. This is the response of a child and she needs to be stronger than this. Braver than this. 

But still, the stress weighs so heavy, filling up all the space in her lungs. She has seen her tribe diminished to a straggling nation at the edge of the world. She has seen the devastation in her best friend’s eyes in the wake of his unsurmountable loss. 

She imagines the Earth Kingdom so diminished. She imagines it burning, and feels that weight.

These are the odds. She carries them in her chest and breathes around the clog in her throat. 

“Katara?”

Zuko doesn’t sound soft, he is made of too many hard edges to sound soft, but he does sound kind. Wary, though, like one would approach a cornered creature with nothing to lose and no way out.

“I’m fine,” she says, and it comes out rough but true. There is no room for uncertainty here. She is small skin and small bones, but she is also a warrior, and a terrifyingly good fighter, and she will do her part to change this world for the better.

Zuko says nothing for several moments. They are caught in the silences, in the shape of it. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the way he curls his hands into fists, the way they shake.

Her own hands hold steady, but only just. 

“Hey, Katara.” He clears his throat. “You’re going to be okay.”

_Don’t make promises you can’t keep,_ she thinks, and breathes, breathes. He is trying to offer a kindness that she can’t make herself hold. This weight is so much more than her own wellbeing.

Sozin’s Comet creeps closer every passing second.

“Let’s get some sleep,” she says, and they head back to the campsite. 

* * *

* * *

Zuko comes out of his uncle’s tent in the wee hours of the dawn, before the rest of the encampment wakes up. His eyes are red from crying and when Katara runs up to him he lets loose a choked out laugh, giving a thumbs up and swiping at his face again.

“He forgives me.”

Katara smiles and hugs him. “I knew he would,” she whispers into his good ear, even though she hadn’t, not really. 

The camp of the White Lotus is a ghost town. Their whispers seem to echo in the silence. She realizes, coldly, that the world might end tomorrow.

It feels good to celebrate something, nonetheless.

She hears Sokka come up behind them before she sees him, and pulls away from Zuko to hug him too. For once in his life, Sokka doesn’t even try to pull away. He just wraps his arms around her and settles his chin in her hair. She thinks the two older boys are trading messages over her head, communicating with solely their eyes.

Tucked away, here, she feels every last second of her fourteen years. The sum of her entire life feels incomplete, especially in the face of this camp full of old, wise beings. The sum of her entire life feels small. 

In the pre-dawn light, it is easier to be scared. 

Katara breathes.

When people need her, she will be steady. Katara ran away from danger only once in her short life, watched her world crumble around her, and refuses to do so ever again. 

But still, but still, she will let herself have this. Just a moment before the sunrise where she does not have to be an entire ocean of force, does not have to be a soldier, and can instead be a girl with her brother.

“Hey,” Sokka says, “You good?”

She pulls away. Breathes.

“Yeah, I’m good.” 

Zuko, standing besides them, has wrapped his arms around himself and is awkwardly looking anywhere except at them. He looks exhausted, blotchy cheeks and pale-faced.

“You look terrible,” she tells him, and his jerks up to look at her, scowling a little before he sees she’s teasing. “Get some sleep, Zuko. You’re going to need it.”

A pause, and then a jerky nod. Their firebender slips away and she watches him sneak back into Uncle Iroh’s tent.

Sokka tugs at her tunic a little bit.

“I’ve found the food-”

She snorts.

_“Of course_ you did.”

“Oh, shut up. C’mon, let's get something to eat before people start waking up properly and all the good stuff is gone.”

They walk, and it feels almost normal. Less like the calm before the storm and more like a casual stroll, except that it’s not, and she knows it too well, the truth of it aching in her bones. Katara finds herself wanting to apologize for a thousand little things. For every little fight and every little joke at her brother’s expense. Instead, she grabs his hand and squeezes it tight.

“You know I love you, right?”

Sokka has callouses, now, that he didn’t have before they left home. His fingers still squish hers in the exact same way, three little presses before letting go.

“Yeah, I know. I love you, too.”

They grab enough food for the whole group and retreat back to their campsite. In an hour, Zuko and Iroh will come to join them. In two hours, Katara will look down at her brother from her perch on Appa’s back and think, _stay safe, please stay safe._

She said it would be her pleasure to do this, to fight Azula by Zuko’s side and end her reign of terror, and she meant it. There is a righteous sort of anger in her chest and she believes firmly in justice, in retribution

Even so, Katara memorizes the faces of her family, takes several long lasting moments pinning every detail in her mind: Toph’s sly little smirk and Suki’s steady hands, the way Aang laughs with his whole body and Sokka smiles. Stolen laughter, stolen kindnesses, good times and bad times and everything in between.

She hopes they all come out on the other side of the war still breathing.

Zuko looks back at her, the wind ruffling his hair.

“Are you ready for this?”

She nods, and takes note of his steady brow, his twitching fingers. She presses quiet moments spent together on hilltops into the crevices of her mind and forces her heartbeat steady.

A lifetime ago, Katara hated this boy. Today, she is ready to die besides him.

“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s do this.”

* * *

* * *

The comet comes. It is beautiful. It is terrifying. The juxtaposition of it all leaves her breathing shallow.

Katara sits besides her friend in a secluded, easily defendable corner and heals a lightning wound on his chest. Her hands do not shake, and she will not even have to think about it. They will be steady, and gentle, and they will heal.

A loved one needs her, and Katara steps up to the challenge, because it is what she does. If her eyes are wet, Zuko doesn’t call her out on it. 

For now, she heals, keeps an eye out for potential enemies closing in. Azula weeps and rages, thrashes against her chains, sobs and sobs and sobs. Katara looks at her and sees a child tragedy. Katara looks at her and sees a girl her own age, lost with rage and grief. Katara looks at her and struggles to find the little girl from Zuko’s stories, who hated getting her portrait done and loved playing games.

Katara does not forgive. This is the second time someone she’s loved has been laid low at the hands of this girl, and Katara’s mercy is a kindness, a strength, not a miracle. Her forgiveness must always, always be earned.

(But she thinks, if she were able, she would go back to the younger youth of this child tragedy and rewrite history for a kinder story than what Azula got. She thinks she would be strong enough, _kind_ enough, to do this.)

The lightning wound curls across the expanse of Zuko’s chest. It smells of burning. She is reminded, suddenly, of blackened unrecognisable features and blood on what was supposed to be the sacred ground of her childhood home. She is reminded, suddenly, of Aang’s small frame against her own, limp and unbreathing.

Where is the rest of her family? Are they safe? 

For a second, her hands might just shake.

Appa, from where he’s standing guard, glances back at them and croons.

She smiles up at the bison as best as she can.

_Focus,_ Katara thinks, and holds steady.

“When I’m done healing you,” she whispers, “I’m gonna kill you myself. Zuko, what were you _thinking?”_

He shrugs, and then groans with it, breathing ragged. 

“No one else gets hurt. My family—we’ve hurt the world enough. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t—no one else gets hurt.”

_“You_ got hurt!”

He scowls up at her.

“I wasn’t about to let you die!” Inhale, exhale, voice hitching. “Why are you angry with me?”

“Why am I- Zuko! You can’t just let _yourself_ die either!”

“But-”

“No. No, I am _grounding_ you from any sort of martyrdom. You’re not allowed to sacrifice for the greater good ever again.”

“You can’t-” he pauses for a breath, and winces— “do that!”

_“Watch me.”_

They glare at each other for one moment, then two. 

She’s not sure who starts laughing, first.

But soon they’re both laughing— relieved, exhausted laughter— because they’re alive, because they made it, because the entire situation was ridiculous and there was so much left still to figure out, so much worry about their friends, their family, but—

They made it.

Katara breathes. 

“Hey, Zuko,” she says, quiet. He looks up at her. “You’re going to be okay.”

It is a promise, and he smiles through the pain, and breathes with her.

* * *

* * *

It takes a few months, after the war, for things to settle.

Katara is fifteen years old. She is all small skin and small bones. Late at night, when she is awoken by the blurry, terrifying images swirling around her head, she thinks about it.

_After the war, after the war, after the war_ —

They made it.

She has always believed in this, in a world better than what it was the day before. It is what she has sought for years.

It is harder than she thought it would be. It is better, in some ways, too.

They won. Sometimes, it even feels like victory.

It is after the war, and they are walking the foothills of the fire nation, trying to find a place for a picnic. Toph is telling a story of some sort from her Earth Rumble days, and Sokka is nodding along with great enthusiasm, hiking the straps of their food bag higher on his shoulders. Ahead of them, farther along the path, Aang is showing Suki how to do cartwheels. Katara can hear the laughter from her position at the back of the line, and it makes her smile.

Zuko walks steady beside her, one foot after another. These hills are familiar to them, their escapes into the climbing trails frequent even as politics, ruling a nation, and healing a war-torn world close in. 

They are soldiers and they are children. Sometimes Katara feels as if they are relearning the second half, fixing the disconnect between one part and another.

Sometimes.

For now, it is after the war, and she tries not to worry about it.

She nudges Zuko with her elbow and makes a face at him, watching as he rolls his eyes in response. Ahead, Suki and Aang have paused, waiting for everyone to catch up so they can decide where to go next, having some sort of handstand competition to pass the time. Sokka and Toph have started talking over one another, conversation dissolving into a petty, ridiculous argument with no meaning or hard feelings behind it. 

Something pokes her in the side.

Katara stiffens, glances up at the boy besides her, who is trying and failing to look innocent, trying and failing to not look amused. She smirks, absentmindedly turns away while fiddling with the clasp of one of her water pouches.

When Zuko goes to poke her again, she whips a puddle of water out and splashes him right in the face.

He blinks, looking more than a little outraged.

She snorts. Loudly. It’s a reaction she’s come to greatly enjoy.

“Katara,” Zuko says, very calmly. “Run.”

Which she does, immediately, kicking off into a sprint and laughing. Behind her, she hears Zuko pick up the pace as well, and puts on another burst of speed.

Toph is already turning around when she catches up with them, but Katara grabs both hers and Sokka’s hands anyways, dragging them for a few steps behind her.

“C’mon,” the words burst out of her, too loud, too bright. She is aware she sounds a little ridiculous. She’s aware that this whole thing is a little ridiculous. “C’mon!”

Sokka glances behind them, sees Zuko running after them in a dead sprint, and groans.

“Katara, what did you _do-”_

“Nothing he didn’t deserve!”

And then they’re all running, running. Katara wonders if she could fly, if she could only run a little faster, the joy inside of her chest so big and buoyant. 

Aang is looking back at them, stars in his eyes and grin creeping up onto his face.

“Is Zuko it!?”

Katara has no idea what this means.

Katara nods anyways and passes him, taking the lead, taking deep breaths and finding a rhythm, finding something like laughter bursting out of her throat. Suki is floundering, asking for an explanation, but she hears her brother override her with something fond and exasperated in his tone all at once.

“They’re just being silly. Just roll with it.”

She is still learning this, still grabbing at it, this sense of fun with nothing to hold it back, this sense of play with no reason for it except that she wants to, except to make up for all the times she’s missed out on, growing up.

Wars end. They always, always end.

Steady steps and steady pacing, crips clear dawns and quiet sunsets, a life ahead of her and a life behind. It is ridiculous and it is hers, and it is enough.

Katara has been lonely. She has ached with it, this loneliness, held it in the palms of her hands and felt its weight. Today she runs the foothills of a foreign nation and realizes that she has left that isolation behind her a long time ago.

She scrambles up to the top of a hill and takes it as a second to breathe, staring up at that big blue sky.

Zuko slams into her and they both go tumbling to the ground. 

“Zuko!” she hisses, and the boy besides her—

He laughs.

She blinks, smiles fonder than she means to, and then stands to help him to his feet. His hand is warm and calloused in her own, holding steady, holding strong, and it means nothing, in the grand scheme of things, and it means everything right here and right now.

This is what victory feels like, getting to revel in these small moments. This is what victory feels like, getting to be with her family on the other side of the war.

Katara’s anger is not gone. She thinks, maybe, that there will always be a part of her full of such grief and rage. Her emotions are such volatile, wild things.

But now there are other things, brighter things, and they fill up her chest with light. They remind her to breathe.

Zuko stands beside her, and there is a history there, there is a weight. But she is letting it go and she is finding herself in this healing, in this friendship. In so many ways, they reflect each other, these two children with their temperaments and their losses, these two children who have their whole lives ahead of them, still.

Heartaches and fears and moments stuck in doubts, promises that you cannot keep and the strength held in the palms of your hands. Blood traitors and runaways, vagabonds and heroes, kindnesses and mercies and miracles all wrapped up into growing beings of scars and skin and bone. This is her family, built from the ground up, and this will never be nothing.

She breathes.

They’re going to be okay.

Katara is learning this, slowly but surely. 

For now, they stand on a hilltop after the war. Katara and Zuko, a pair of kids who grew up too fast, who are still relearning what it is to be young. 

“Now,” Zuko says, and his voice is quiet, content. There are memories dancing in his eyes of simpler times. “You have to help me catch the others.”

She grins, nods, pulls her hair up into a ponytail, prepares herself for battle.

Prepares herself for _play._

When she and Zuko crest back over the hill, the others have gathered in an awkward semi circle at the base, mostly looking confused.

Aang takes one look and practically _shrieks,_ scampering away at a speed faster than should be possible. “They’re both it!”

They scatter, and she and Zuko trade looks as Sokka curses up a storm and drops the food bag on the ground so he can run faster, grabbing Suki's hand and pulling her along when she still looks lost. Toph is sprinting after Aang, demanding explanations, and he is shouting them over the wind.

Katara is struck breathless, for a moment, at the wonderful truth that this is something that she gets to keep, that this family of hers is made to last not for a moment, but a lifetime.

She grins.

“Ready for this?”

Zuko shrugs.

“As I’ll ever be.”

They take off down the incline, side by side. They are still learning this, the boundaries of friendship and family, the ways of healing. There is so much left for them out into the world, and they have time, finally, to be a part of it. The future is at their feet, the horizon endless before them, and life is good.

Life is good.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, everyone. Hope you enjoyed <3


End file.
